Disclosure: CollectiveRay is funded personally out of pure passion for helping people working with websites. We do however generate some income through recommendations of products. This means if you click on a link and purchase an item we link to, we will receive a small sum out of that sale. We usually partner with vendors to make your purchase cheaper than buying direct.
When diagnosing an issue, you need to think back to what was the last item that changed. It could be a code push that somehow removed analytics from your site, it could have been a change to content that has caused a decline in search traffic. Did you make a change to your advertising? Sudden declines (or increases) are often traceable back to the last modification (big or small) that was made. - Greg Kihlstrom, Yes& Agency
Active participation on social media sites can take your content viral. More the shares you get more people are knowing about your blog. Which can increase your blog reader base. All you need is Social media presence on prominent social sites, and a proper strategy to make most out of it. If you unsure how to utilize social media, you can read our earlier guide on how to get website traffic from Facebook fan pages.

Website operators pull out all the stops to try and guide visitors to their web presences, through advertisements, links, or simply high-quality content. To measure the impact of different measures, Google Analytics tracks the behavior of site visitors and sums it up in detailed statistics. But how does Google do this and how can this be useful for your site?

Google Analytics is an invaluable source of data on just about every conceivable aspect of your site, from your most popular pages to visitor demographics. Keep a close eye on your Analytics data, and use this information to inform your promotional and content strategies. Pay attention to what posts and pages are proving the most popular. Inspect visitor data to see how, where and when your site traffic is coming from.
SEMRush is primarily a search engine optimization tool, meaning you’d use it as a website owner to help find and target keywords that bring you more search engine traffic. However, as a regular web surfer, you can use it to see what kind of search traffic a site gets How Search Engines Work & Ways to Improve Your Search Results How Search Engines Work & Ways to Improve Your Search Results Tired of searching a bunch of times to find what you want? Here's how search engines actually work and what to do to make your searches faster and more accurate. Read More .
There is no magic formula for content marketing success, despite what some would have you believe. For this reason, vary the length and format of your content to make it as appealing as possible to different kinds of readers. Intersperse shorter, news-based blog posts with long-form content as well as video, infographics and data-driven pieces for maximum impact.
In the site, you can get StumbleUpon toolbar for your browser so that you can explore it at any time. You can also download StumbleUpon Addon for browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. StumbleUpon app is also available for devices like iPhone, Android phone etc… And you can also download the StumbleUpon App for Windows 8 from the Windows Store.
Hack #1: Hook readers in from the beginning. People have low attention spans. If you don’t have a compelling “hook” at the beginning of your blogs, people will click off in seconds. You can hook them in by teasing the benefits of the article (see the intro to this article for example!), telling a story, or stating a common problem that your audience faces.
A client once had a downward trend in organic traffic. We audited all the checklist items to figure out what the issue was and we were stumped. We then evaluated the search trends of their top backlinks and found that their highest authority backlink had the same drop. To fix our client site, we had to fix the referring site. External forces are sometimes just as important as internal factors. - Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

Hi Brian! Very good and exactly what I was looking for. I have a problem though, we are creating the first video editing software that edits video WHILE FILMING. We are video geeks with a lot of experience, however we are trying to appeal to GoPro users and video tutorial makers but we have little knowledge in that field. Any suggestions on how we write about that if we have no idea about the space?

Google Adwords is the most popular method for traffic. Since they are the top search engine right now it make sense to advertise there if you can afford it. You bid on keywords to get your site at the top of the search when your keyword comes up. There is more involved but it's all laid out at Google. There are a lot of other sites that use this advertising strategy called pay per click or PPC.
The web is built on links, and web users routinely use links to find the information they need. When a site links to your site, web users follow those links, resulting in web traffic, or referral traffic. When these backlinks, also called inbound links, come from high quality sites, they also tell Google your content is authoritative and trustworthy. This is important because inbound links from respected sites are an SEO ranking factor, so they can boost organic traffic, too.
The largest search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo, each have fairly simple programs to get started. You determine the key words or search phrase as well as the amount you are willing to spend (per click and/or per day). Most of them offer simple programs that require you to fill out a form and put a certain amount of money down as credit; you can also use a credit card to pay as you go. Like anything new, start small with paid SEM and add complexity (and budget) as you learn more and see results over time.

High ranking metrics will result in getting your site on the top position of several charts such as Top Alexa sites, Top WOT sites and so more. People usually go through these lists to discover new sites and hence you will be getting referral traffic as well. Who knows? Some of those traffic may be your next big client or loyal reader of your blog.

Josh Coffy talks how he decided to attempt a different marketing tactic for their (slow) growing drumming education company. The techniques worked for him so well that he generated 500,000 video views. From ideal posting times and ideal setup for the videos to taking inspiration from the big guys, Josh doesn’t spare a single detail when it comes to teaching you how to do it yourself.
5) Post at the right time. Let’s say you want to post in the r/Entrepreneur/ subreddit, but there’s already a post in the #1 spot with 200 upvotes, and it was posted 4 hours ago. If you post at that time, you probably won’t overtake that #1 spot, and you’ll get less traffic. However, if you wait a day, check back, and see that the new #1 spot only has 12-15 upvotes, you’ll have a golden opportunity. It will be much easier for you to hit the #1 spot and get hundreds of upvotes.
The Internet is positively riddled with traffic generators. They range from low-quality autorefresh bots using proxies to appear as though they come from around the world, to sophisticated traffic exchange systems powered by real people and real advertising. Ideally, you’ll strike upon the most valuable of these networks when you’re searching, but there’s a few problems.

So many businesses are focused on attracting new customers through content marketing that they forget about more traditional methods. Email marketing can be a powerful tool, and even a moderately successful email blast can result in a significant uptick in traffic. Just be careful not to bombard people with relentless emails about every single update in your business. Also, don’t overlook the power of word-of-mouth marketing, especially from people who are already enjoying your products or services. A friendly email reminder about a new service or product can help you boost your traffic, too.

This post and the Skycraper technique changed my mind about how I approach SEO, I’m not a marketing expert and I haven’t ranked sites that monetize really well, I’m just a guy trying to get some projects moving on and I’m not even in the marketing business so I just wanted to say that the way you write makes the information accesible, even if you’re not a native english speaker as myself.
I am new at this. I have been researching keywords and have found a few keyword phrases that nobody in the first page of Google results is even using in their Title Tag or H1 Tag. Some of the companies on the results page have a high pagerank and lots of backlinks. If I optimize for this exact keyword phrase with a new website, would I have much of a chance of getting on the first page eventually?
incredible post and just what i needed! i’m actually kinda new to blogging (my first year coming around) and so far my expertise has been in copy writing/seo copy writing. however link building has become tedious for me. your talk about influencing influencers makes perfect sense, but i find it difficult for my niche. my blog site is made as “gift ideas” and holiday shoppers complete with social networks. i get shares and such from my target audience, but i find that my “influencers” (i.e etsy, red box, vat19, etc.) don’t allow dofollow links and usually can’t find suitable sources. I guess my trouble is just prospecting in general.